Zombie
Introduction The zombie is the central entity and focus of Project Lazarus. A zombie has a single goal: to down players. It accomplishes this task by chasing nearby players until it gets close enough to hit its victim. It takes three hits (or five hits if the player has the perk Juggernog equipped) for a zombie to successfully down a player. After successfully accomplishing this task, the zombie immediately chases the next closest player while leaving the downed player behind to bleed out and die. A zombie is found most frequently as a member in a group, or horde, of zombies. A single zombie is not difficult to kill, and players often leave the last zombie in a round alive for a strategy called "Don't Kill the Last Zombie." A horde of zombies, on the other hand, is often very difficult to kill without powerful weapons. When killing a zombie horde is not an option, players run away or dodge the horde to buy time or meet up with other players. Players cannot hide from zombies. Zombies are not that smart, but they always know exactly where players are and the shortest path to take to get to players the fastest. In game developing terms, this behavior is called pathfinding. Zombies enter the map by breaking down barriers. Attributes Each new round, three attributes of zombies increase to make the game more difficult. Health The most noticeable change in zombies as rounds progress is in their health, or hitpoints. In Round 1, zombies die in a single Knife hit, but by Round 6, zombies die in five knife hits. This observation means that in the span of six rounds, zombies have nearly quintupled their health! Here are some important facts about the health of zombies: * All zombies in a round have the same amount of health. * Zombies always have more health each new round. ** The number their health increases by is not the same each new round. Most likely, zombies gain the same amount of health (linear increase) each round in early rounds but gain a percentage of their health (exponential increase) in later rounds. * Zombie health does not regenerate like player health does. If a zombie is dealt damage, its health is permanently reduced. * Zombie health is not affected by the numbers of players in the server. (Unlike their number.) Number The second most noticeable change in zombies as rounds progress is in the number of zombies that spawn each round. A solo player in a server has to kill 6 zombies in Round 1, but hundreds of zombies per round in later rounds. Here are some important facts about the number of zombies: * The more players there are in a server, the more zombies spawn per round. * To prevent lag, there is a maximum of 24 zombies (solo mode) that can be spawned in the map at a time. When the server reaches this maximum, new zombies do not spawn until currently spawned-in zombies are killed. * The number of zombies increases each new round. Speed One of the less noticeable changes in zombies as rounds progress is in their speed. As players reach higher rounds, zombies move quicker, hit players more rapidly, and break down barriers quicker. * Players cannot walk away from zombies in late rounds past around Round 25. Players must occasionally sprint, or zombies will catch up to them. * Zombies spawn closer to entrances as rounds progress, allowing them to enter the map much quicker. ** In early rounds, zombies spawn away from entrances and much walk up to them. ** In later rounds, zombies may sometimes spawn right at a barrier. If not, they will sprint to the barrier and return to their normal speed upon entering the map. Killing Zombies The most principal rule of killing zombies is to always aim for the head. Head shots do much more damage than body shots, and body shots do more damage than limb shots. Head shots also reward the player with more points. Since zombies always follow the player in a straight line, it is not difficult to land head shots at all. The only situation in which a player should not aim for the head is when the player becomes surrounded with or cornered in a horde of zombies. In this case, players should spray down the zombies by erratically firing an automatic gun into the horde until the zombies are all killed or a hole is opened in the horde for the player to escape through. The Ray Gun, since it deals blast damage, becomes extremely useful in such cases. The M249 SAW, a powerful light machine gun, is also useful if a player becomes overwhelmed. Sniping zombies from a distance is often entertaining, but ineffective. Waiting for zombies to approach makes it easier to land accurate head shots rapidly and prevents zombies from sneaking up from behind while a player is preoccupied with sniping. Of course, if there are no nearby zombies, feel free to snipe far-away ones. Weapons excluding the Knife do penetrative damage. This means that if two zombies are lined up, a player can kill both in a single shot since the bullet hits the first zombie, travels through it, and hits the next zombie behind it. Powerful guns such as snipers can sometimes kill four zombies in a single shot if the zombies are positioned correctly! Players can move around to line up zombies and deal penetrative damage. If the power-up Insta-Kill is activated, all zombies die in a single hit from any weapon, including the Knife. When a zombie is killed, its eyes stop glowing and it enters a ragdoll position. The previous velocity of the zombie does not seem to matter- it loses all momentum upon dying and falls to the ground. This probably means that the joints of the ragdoll are not applied, but the 'alive' zombie instance is deleted and a 'dead' zombie is instantly teleported to its location. On taking damage, zombies will occasionally lose a limb corresponding to where they were shot. This does not seem to alter their speed, attack time, or damage. A zombie that loses its head will always instantly die, in contrast to Call of Duty Zombies where zombies can stay alive long after losing their head in later rounds. In early rounds, players generally run up to zombies and knife or head shot them. In later rounds, players generally stand still in a safe location and aim in a specific spot, waiting for zombies to approach them. As zombies enter the player's line-of-sight, the player fires his/her weapon until the line of zombies is dead. The player then reloads, turns around to check for zombies behind them, and then returns to their previous aiming location. Category:Canon